Five Morris County towns looking to combine medical services to cut costs

MORRIS COUNTY -- Five central Morris County towns may form a joint municipal health department, to cut costs while providing needed municipal services, officials said today.

Randolph would be the lead player in the group, to also include Roxbury, Mine Hill, Wharton and Rockaway Borough. Preliminary discussions have taken place which could lead to a joint operation that could begin in 2011, representatives of the towns said.

Robert Sciarrino/The Star-LedgerA 2006 photo of Roxbury Health officer Frank Grisi, who is expected to retire in 2010. His retirement will likely lead to the township turning over administration of health programs to Randolph.

The new five-town health agency would start up following the expected retirement of Roxbury Health officer Frank Grisi at the end of 2010, said officials. Roxbury would then turn over the administration of its health programs to Randolph, which also would bring the other three towns under its health department umbrella.

"We are definitely interested in starting this up,'' said Mine Hill Administrator Stephen Welsh, whose town now contracts for health services with Roxbury.

Welsh said they anticipate the new agency would offer the same key services they now get through Roxbury, such as the annual influenza clinic and health fair, restaurant inspections and health services for senior citizens.

Currently, Roxbury and Randolph both run their own health agencies. Mine Hill and Wharton contract for services from Roxbury, while Rockaway Borough gets its health service through Randolph.

Grouping the health services under one administrative umbrella could be cost-effective for the towns, which mostly share common borders and deal with similar issues, said Wharton Administrator Jon Rheinhardt.

Wharton now contracts for some 500 to 600 hours of health services annually at a cost of about $50,000, said Rheinhardt. For its money, the borough gets restaurant and septic inspections, health education and responses to public health issues, such as swine flu and bed bug and rodent problems, he said.

Randolph Township Manager John Lovell said pending retirements of Roxbury's health officer and Randolph's construction code officer set up an interesting possibility of shared services for Randolph and Roxbury. Randolph could take over the lead on health services for the two adjoining towns, while Roxbury could do the same for construction issues, said Lovell.

"We're looking to take advantage of any potential personnel changes over the next two to three years,'' said Roxbury Township Manager Christopher Raths. "We feel with shared services we can offer better cost efficiencies for our construction and health departments.''

Since Mine Hill, Wharton and Rockaway Borough are connected with Randolph and Roxbury on health services, Lovell said it seemed to make sense to consider creating a central Morris County regional health agency for all five municipalities. The towns would have to discuss specific steps needed to create such an entity and get their health services fees aligned before operating costs or potential savings to the towns for could be estimated, said Lovell.

Several of the likely participants in the new venture already are involved in formal shared services agreements.

A regional court system, to handle cases from Dover, Mine Hill, Wharton, Mount Arlington and Rockaway Borough, was created earlier this year. The towns hope to save $2.6 million over the next 10 years.

Meanwhile, Wharton and Mine Hill also share a police department and school superintendents.

"It's something that has been beneficial to the towns, makes sense,'' said Rheinhardt.

But he stressed creation of the proposed new health agency is in "its infant stages,'' with many details yet to be worked out.